News Article

Price Surge for MY 2012 E-Bikes

Prices for complete electric bikes as well as for parts of e-bikes are surging in China since last March. Increased costs for raw materials like magnetic steel (up 87.5% from October 2010 March 2011) are driving up prices across the board. It will lead to MY 2012

SHANGHAI, China – Prices for complete electric bikes as well as for parts of e-bikes are surging in China since last March. Increased costs for raw materials like magnetic steel (up 87.5% from October 2010 – March 2011) are driving up prices across the board. It will lead to MY 2012 e-bikes launched at this week’s Bike Expo or at next month’s Eurobike that have significantly higher price tags.

Raw Material

Oct. 2010

Mar. 2011

Price Increase

ABS plastic

1,959 Euro/ton

2,117 Euro/ton

8.06 %

Lead

1,676 Euro/ton

1,888 Euro/ton

12.65 %

Copper

6,909 Euro/ton

8,108 Euro/ton

17.35 %

Magnetic steel

60,949 Euro/ton

114,280 Euro/ton

87.50 %

Aluminum

1,720 Euro/ton

1,748 Euro/ton

1.63 %

Iron

506 Euro/ton

686 Euro/ton

35.57 %

Stainless steel

3,156 Euro/ton

3,809 Euro/ton

20.69 %

Rubber

3,483 Euro/ton

4,898 Euro/ton

40.63 %

Carton

5,115 Euro/ton

5,768 Euro/ton

12.77 %

In 2010, with the increasing transaction costs of raw materials in China and overseas markets, the main raw materials for e-bikes also inflated in price, including steel, lead, magnetic steel, copper, etcetera. This further contributed to the price increase of main e-bike components such as frame, battery, plastic parts and motors. Moreover, the increase of labour costs put more pressure on the operations costs of the Chinese e-bike OEMs.

Since March 2011, almost all Chinese e-bike brands raised their retail prices by 11 to 22 euro per unit; the biggest price increase in the recent 10 years. It is expected that this price increase only covered the rising cost since 2010. If price of raw materials such as copper, steel, plastic and magnetic steel keeps rising, e-bikes will be faced with more price increases.

From the beginning of 2010 to March 2011, the price of magnetic steel, raw material for electric motors, has increased from 29,386 euro per ton to 114,280 euro per ton. This means that the cost of each electric motor increased by about 5.44 euro. Next to that the price of electrolytic copper (also a vital component of e-bike motors) rose from 6,530 euro per ton to 8,163 euro. This equals to 0.87 – 0.98 euro price increase for each motor. Also, aluminium increased in price. All the prices rises combined contributes to a price increase per e-bike motor of over 6.5 euro.

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